The invention relates generally to media buying systems, and, more particularly, to an apparatus for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from a plurality of available advertising spots for television broadcast, radio broadcast, internet broadcast and/or other media.
Media buyers such as advertising agencies are presented with an ever increasing number of options in representing clients. For example, over the years traditional advertising media such as television (both cable and free broadcast) and radio broadcasting have experienced a growth in the number of broadcasters, and, thus, the number of advertising opportunities they offer. A similar increase has occurred in print media such as newspapers and magazines. More recently, the rising popularity of the internet has created an entire new realm of advertising opportunities. Faced with such a proliferation of choices, purchasing advertising spots to develop an advertising campaign can often be a time-consuming, taxing process with considerable resources spent in sorting through, identifying and purchasing the optimum available advertising spots for a given campaign.
The process for purchasing advertising spots in the television media illustrates these issues. As is well known, there are a number of television stations selling advertising spots to be aired in association with entertainment programs and the like airing at various times of the day. As is also well known, the value of a given advertising spot is dependent upon a number of factors, including: the popularity of the program associated with the spot, the time of day the spot will air, and the length of the spot. The value, of course, primarily depends upon the number of viewers exposed to the spot and, secondarily, upon the demographics of the viewing audience.
In order to approach the process of purchasing advertising spots in a disciplined and efficient manner, media buyers have developed several conventions and tools. For example, the times of the day are broken down into blocks of hours referred to as xe2x80x9cdaypartsxe2x80x9d. Dayparts are defined in terms of times of the day and days of the week. For example, the xe2x80x9cEarly Morningxe2x80x9d daypart is commonly defined as the time period occurring on weekdays, from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
As is well known, Nielsen Media Research offers a sophisticated television ratings system in which it monitors and develops reliable information about the size and demographics of the television viewing audience. The measure of the audience size is typically enunciated in terms of ratings. Media buyers capitalize on the existence of these ratings to determine the value of purchasing an advertising spot on a given program. For example, media buyers often measure the cost effectiveness of buying a particular spot based on its cost-per-point (CPP) value. The CPP value of a spot associated with a given program is calculated by dividing the purchase price of the spot by the rating of that program. Thus, if a given program has a Nielsen Media Research rating of xe2x80x9c4xe2x80x9d, and the station charges $300 for a thirty second announcement in the program, then the CPP for that spot is $75 CPP (i.e., $300/4).
In developing media plans, media buyers often speak of xe2x80x9cgross rating points"" or GRPs. GRPs are simply a sum of program ratings for a group of individual programs. For example, a plan may call for 100 GRPs to be purchased in the xe2x80x9cEarly Newsxe2x80x9d daypart over a given number of weeks. The media buyer""s job is then to purchase spots on a group of programs that reach the target 100 GRPs for the selected time period while staying within the allocated budget. A media plan typically covers a number of weeks, specifies the number of GRPs to be spent per week and per daypart, and identifies a budget, usually broken down by daypart.
In any event, after the media plan has been created, the media buyer begins to identify and purchase spots that, when taken together, substantially meet the goals of the media plan. To this end, the media buyer contacts the relevant TV stations or their sales representatives to request lists of commercial announcement spots of the appropriate length that are available during the duration of the campaign. The spots on this list are commonly referred to as xe2x80x9cavailablesxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cavailsxe2x80x9d. Once the avails are obtained, the media buyers develops estimates of the rating performance of each of the available spot announcements.
Once the rating performance of the spots are estimated, the buyer groups the spots together by daypart. Grouping the spots by daypart facilitates comparison between the available spots from all stations within a daypart. Such comparison enables the buyer to determine which are the best spots to fulfill the requirements of that daypart as specified in the media plan. To make this determination, the media buyer typically considers the CPPs of the available spots. The CPPs are probably the most important measure of whether a particular spot will help the buyer achieve the daypart goals. If the station wants too much money for a program with a low rating, then the CPP for that program will be too high to fit within the media plan budget.
In order to fulfill the daypart goals most efficiently (i.e., at the lowest CPP), the media buyer begins to manually xe2x80x9cpackagexe2x80x9d the spots with the lowest CPPs. The verb xe2x80x9cpackagexe2x80x9d as used in this context refers to the process of selecting spots and grouping the selected spots together with other selected spots. The group of selected spots is commonly referred to as xe2x80x9cthe packagexe2x80x9d. In any event, the buyer typically selects those spots with the lowest CPP for addition to the package.
In some instances, there is an opportunity to place more than one spot in a program per week. To guide the buyer faced with such opportunities, the media plan spells out media buying guidelines indicating the number of spots per week that can be placed in a xe2x80x9cstripped programxe2x80x9d (i.e., a program that runs five days per week). A typical number of permissible spots in a stripped program is three spots per week. The media buying guidelines include other parameters. For example, they typically set a minimum rating that each spot must equal or exceed.
After packaging the spots for the daypart in question, the media buyer puts together packages for the remaining dayparts on a daypart by daypart basis within the established budget. When all of the packages for the dayparts are completed, the buyer reviews all of the packages to determine how much advertising overall is assigned to each station. If this station by station review indicates an unsatisfactory distribution, the buyer may then re-select spots to achieve an acceptable advertising apportionment. The entire process typically takes 1.5 to 4 hours to complete.
In accordance with an aspect of the invention, an apparatus for use with a memory storing a plurality of representations of available advertising spots is provided for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from the plurality of available advertising spots. The apparatus includes a plurality of guideline variables stored in the memory. It also includes a daypart selector cooperating with the memory to develop a first set of available spots in a first daypart and a second set of available spots in a second daypart from the plurality of available advertising spots. The apparatus is further provided with a spot selector cooperating with the memory and the daypart selector to develop a package of available spots from the first and second sets of available spots based on the guideline variables. Additionally, the apparatus includes a tester cooperating with the spot selector for excluding spots from the package based on a first predefined criteria defined by at least one of the guideline variables.
In some embodiments, the representations of the available spots each respectively include a cost per point value, and the spot selector develops the package by searching the first set for an available spot based on the cost per point values. In some such embodiments, the spot selector develops the package by searching the second set for an available spot based on the cost per point values. In some such embodiments, the order in which the spot selector searches the first and second sets is user definable.
In some embodiments, the spot selector and the tester complete developing a first selected one of the first and second sets before developing a second selected one of the first and second sets. In such embodiments, the first selected one and the second selected one of the first and second sets may optionally be user definable.
In some embodiments, the spot selector continues passing spots meeting the first predefined criteria to the tester until a second predefined criteria defined by at least one of the guideline variables is satisfied. Optionally, the second predefined criteria may comprise a threshold sum of gross rating points to be purchased for the first daypart, or a threshold sum of gross rating points to be purchased for a campaign including at least the first and second dayparts.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an apparatus for use with a memory storing a plurality of representations of available advertising spots offered by a plurality of media suppliers is provided for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from a plurality of available advertising spots offered by a plurality of media suppliers. The apparatus includes a package developer cooperating with the memory to develop a package containing a subset of the representations stored in memory based on at least one of a plurality of guideline variables. Additionally, the apparatus is provided with a validator cooperating with the package developer to validate the package by ensuring that every media supplier associated with the representations in the subset supplies a minimum percentage of the spots in the subset.
Preferably, if the validator determines that a given supplier falls below the minimum percentage, the package developer develops a second package including a second subset of the representations stored in the memory based on the at least one of the plurality of guideline variables and by excluding all spots associated with the given supplier from the second subset.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, an apparatus for use with a memory for storing a plurality of representations of available advertising spots is provided for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from the plurality of available advertising spots. The apparatus includes a plurality of guideline variables stored in the memory. The guideline variables include supplier percentage variables defining a percentage of gross rating points to be purchased from each media supplier in a set of media suppliers. The apparatus also includes a daypart selector cooperating with the memory to develop a first set of available spots in a first daypart from the plurality of available advertising spots. The apparatus is further provided with a spot selector cooperating with the memory and the daypart selector to develop a package of available spots from the first set of available spots based on the guideline variables. Additionally, the apparatus includes a tester cooperating with the spot selector for excluding spots from the package based on a first predefined criteria defined by at least one of the guideline variables and based upon the supplier percentage variables such that, upon completion of the package, the package contains spots from the media suppliers in the set of media suppliers apportioned in the percentages defined by the supplier percentage variables.
Optionally, the supplier percentage variables and/or the set of media suppliers may be user definable.
In accordance with still another aspect of the invention, a method is provided for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from a plurality of available advertising spots. The method comprises the steps of developing a first set of available spots in a first daypart from a plurality of available advertising spots; developing a second set of available spots in a second daypart from a plurality of available advertising spots, developing a package of available spots from the first and second sets of available spots based on guideline variables; and excluding spots from the package based on a first predefined criteria defined by at least one of the guideline variables.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention a method for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from a plurality of available advertising spots offered by a plurality of media suppliers is provided. The method comprises the steps of: storing a plurality of representations of available advertising spots offered by a plurality of media suppliers; developing a package containing a subset of the representations based on guideline variables; and validating the package by ensuring that every media supplier associated with the representations in the subset supplies a minimum percentage of the spots in the subset.
Preferably, the method further comprises the step of: if a given supplier falls below the minimum percentage, developing a second package including a second subset of the representations stored in the memory based on the guideline variables and by excluding all spots associated with the given supplier from the second subset.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, a method for automatically developing a package of advertising spots from a plurality of available advertising spots is provided. The method comprises the steps of: providing a plurality of guideline variables including supplier percentage variables defining a percentage of gross rating points to be purchased from each media supplier in a set of media suppliers; developing a first set of available spots in a first daypart from the plurality of available advertising spots; developing a package of available spots from the first set of available spots based on the guideline variables; and excluding spots from the package based on a first predefined criteria defined by at least one of the guideline variables and based upon the supplier percentage variables such that, upon completion of the package, the package contains spots from the user defined media suppliers apportioned in the percentages defined by the supplier percentage variables.
Other features and advantages are inherent in the apparatus claimed and disclosed or will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description and its accompanying drawings.